BAJA CALIFORNIA, 1950-1967:
Photographs by Howard E. Gulick

Howard E. Gulick made his first long trip into Baja California in 1950,
traveling as far south as Loreto in a new Jeep station wagon.
Throughout the 1950s he spent most of his vacations exploring the peninsula.
In 1956 Gulick co-authored with Peter Gerhard a classic guidebook used by
a generation of Baja California aficionados: The Lower California Guidebook:
a Descriptive Traveler's Guide (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1956)
Though not the first such guide - a pioneering effort by the Automobile Club
of Southern California described a 1925 automobile trip - The Lower California
Guidebook blazed a trail for Baja California guidebooks by providing up-to-date
coverage of roads and services along with accurate historical information.

According to their preface Gulick and Gerhard sought to "set the record straight
and to present a useful and detailed description of the peninsula, with the sort of
factual information that a traveler would want to know." In 1964, Gulick recalled,
"besides merely covering roads, I studied and looked for old trails, missions, ranches,
etc. Along with all this, detailed notes of road mileages enabled me to plot the roads
on a base map. During this period most long weekends were spent down there often in the
company of Faustino Perez of Ensenada, and frequently two-day weekends also."

Gulick made hundreds of photographs of Baja California's landscapes, coastlines, cities
and built environment. The Mandeville Special Collections Library houses Gulick's Baja
California-related papers, including his original travel journals, correspondence,
map materials and, notably, his photographic slides. A selection of Gulick's Baja
California images dating from the 1950s and 1960s here follows. All quotes are from the
1956 edition (the first edition) of the Lower California Guidebook.